Posts Tagged ‘worldchanging’

Zeitgeist Addendum: Truth mixed with lies

Saturday, January 10th, 2009

There is some serious talent behind the Zeitgeist movies. They may present the current top standard of the propaganda genre so it is perhaps somewhat comforting that what it propagates is not all lies and that what it presents does have the capability to make people rethink their beliefs and positions. Even to only make people start thinking about them at all is already some progress made. That’s what I would expect from anti-establishment propaganda after all.

However, Zeitgeist is still a terribly mixed bag of a lot of truth and just enough lies to make the whole thing seem dubious for recommendation. The important thing is to do your own thinking and your own research in order to discern fact from fiction. If you are capable of doing that and resisting the emotional appeals to acceptance of the author’s message, then I can recommend Zeitgeist, especially Zeitgeist Addendum.

What I based on my previous thinking and research consider as true in Zeitgeist Addendum are the claims presented with regards to how money is created and what money in fact represents – nothing but debt. It very clearly explains the inherent flaw of the system that is its complete dependence on perpetual and growing debt. It also, in my opinion, rightly concludes that monetary system as it has been set up leads to an illusion of scarcity that people believe as real. The result is this great and growing divide between the poor and the rich.

Inflation, as probably the most dangerous hidden tax, caused by the absurd fractional reserve banking system, combined with the fraud of interest and ignorance of the masses towards what money actually is, in fact makes most people living today in this ignorance into a modern form of slaves.

They work to get money because money is seen as the only means by which to purchase what they need, but money itself is a debt that must be repaid. In effect, even if you personally do not owe anybody any money, even if you never bought anything on credit or took a loan, you having the money that you have relies on somebody else owing that same amount of money to the banks. Basically, all money in existence is owed to the banks and if it were all repaid, money would cease to exist, and if it is not repaid it means that the banks will take the supposedly physical equivalent. Therefore, you effectively end up working to create wealth on which the banks already have a claim to, through the very money you earn by creating this wealth.

The theory further proposed is that all of the previous and current political and economic systems have been used in service of the minority of powerful people at the expense of the majority. The states were effectively never at the very top of the food chain, but the private interests. A system that actually seemed to enable the richest among us to gain the most power ever was the so called “free market capitalism” that originated in USA. The key reason may be the fact that freer markets tend to be more productive and more innovative and therefore creating more wealth and the fact that it’s expansive nature and tendency to cross borders led to its extension, in some form, across all of the world: globalization.

Of course, since the US version of free market capitalism had a state and therefore americans and the rest of the people in the world legitimized some forms of violence as moral, the profit motive that drives private interests combined with this legitimization of violence as good in some cases led to private interests quite willingly abusing the governments of the world to force their interests on others.

And this is where Zeitgeist Addendum authors make a key mistake. Zeitgeist describe all of the coercive ways in which governments operate in the interest of their private overlords’ profits, yet the only thing they blame is the profit motive and not these coercive ways.

And that’s where it all breaks loose. They begin with a tirade against the profit motive and self interest, completely and blindly dismissing the fact that without mass legitimization of violence through government, big profit driven private interests would not be able to do what they blame them to do. The monetary-ism they are describing cannot exist without legitimization of violence through government. Yet instead of portraying coercion as the problem they portray self-interest as the culprit, thus yet again making the same mistake pretty much all revolutionaries before them have made, and are now basing a movement on it.

Their solution seems very attractive, but considering the above also very misguided or at best vague. They speak of lack of scarcity caused by the technology. They speak of laws not being necessary as technological solutions are found to problems that laws would face. And they almost seem voluntaryist. They seem unwilling to force people into anything and even their method of persuasion, completely apolitical in nature, seems very in line with voluntaryism – the change being in the mind – order being emergent rather than established (forced) and so on. But unfortunately, they mix these noble intentions with false collectivist concepts such as common good.

It’s almost like some form of voluntaryist communism. I can sympathize, but everything that bases itself on unreal concepts may in some way be doomed to fail.

I believe it is not the profit motive that is the main culprit. It is the legitimization of coercion. To deny self interest is to deny self. Even if all humans were on some level one with others and the universe (and in some way I can see how that can be), on another level differences emerge which allow for different entities having different properties and therefore being distinct as what they are. We recognize human species as distinct from other species based on things by which we are different from others, yet common to each other. The same way we can recognize each human individual by what differs him from other human individuals.

If it weren’t so we would not be human individuals. Therefore to use this philosophy of oneness is to mistake the forest for the trees or from another perspective, the matter and energy we are all consisted off for the distinct individuals that these same matter and energy make us into. It is to see only a part of the picture. To deny self-interest is to deny the existence of self, but for a human individual to deny the existence of self would be immediately self-contradictory, because it is the self that made that denial.

Once the Venus Project and people behind Zeitgeist realize this and modify their message and strategy to include the recognition of individual self and his or her right to choose for self and consequently realizes that it is the coercion that is fundamental to the problems observed in the world today, I can join their movement. Otherwise I can only recommend you to tread carefully. They have some good practical ideas and they may motivate you to oppose the establishment, but keep in mind that you do not have to give up your self-interest for the vision of the world similar to the one they propose, or better, to become true.

You only need to reject coercion as a moral thing, in all instances in which it occurs.

Tags: ,
Posted in Uncategorized | 11 Comments »

I took the red pill.

Wednesday, November 26th, 2008

I was owned, stripped like a slave without even realizing it. Not anymore. I am not anybody’s property.

Statism is dead. I killed it. Did you?

Watch this and then tell me.



Are you awake now?

Tags: , ,
Posted in Uncategorized | No Comments »

Everything happens for a reason.

Sunday, September 28th, 2008

The more I understand causality the less I believe in coincidences. Everything happens for a reason. A reason for every event is its cause. Where conscious choice is involved, the cause may be a purpose of the one who chooses. I pursue a goal, thus I act to produce a cause that will produce an event that is a part of the chain of events that leads to the achievement of my goal – my purpose.

The more one knows and understands the multitude of causality chains affecting ones pursuit of purpose the more powerful one is. Having a defined purpose is, however, a pre-requisite.

We may be facing a new Great Depression in this world, and a subsequent resurgence of violent fascism and war. This too happens for a reason. Some would say it’s prophecies coming true. Others would blame human inability to resist violence (which results in governments tyranizing markets of otherwise free people). Some would say both, or some other imaginative reason.

But whatever we say or believe the reason exists and it is what it is regardless of what someone thinks it is. The closer one is to the truth of what this reason is, and moreover what all to one relevant reasons are, the more powerful one is.

Great Depression and increases of threatening violence easily instill fear in us, but there is an illusive truth somewhere in my mind which seems to hold the key which opens the doors out of that prison of fear and into the endless realm of possibilities. Where even in the worst of times one can have a world of his own. Once you rise above the chains of events – the causalities of our time and sees what they are you can mold it to your will. Even if you can’t change the whole world, since it involves others who may have the same power as you, you can transform your world.

But it is an elusive truth. My guess would be that it reflects, one way or another, the exact belief that is the topic of this post: everything happens for a reason.

So perhaps, if you find and know the reason to everything that affects you and everything you want to be affected by you can act against reactions that press you down and instill fear in you, to create the consequences that do the opposite – empowering you.

Maybe the greatest of souls will be born during the hard times that are coming. Maybe the singularity, the awakening, the new enlightenment, the transition, the evolutionary leap – will happen when the times seem the darkest.

And perhaps it will be a deliberate act by the few and a react by the many inspired by those few, that will bring it about.

Freedom is a state of mind. So is serenity and power. Rewiring a mind to these states is a painful process, but it is possible.

As the banks fall and violence rises, let us be ready. A powerful mind can stop bullets before they’ve been fired and make a mountain out of a depression.

Tags: , , ,
Posted in Uncategorized | No Comments »

You are what you think.

Sunday, August 10th, 2008

I’ve just read a very short book, only 22 pages long, called “As a Man Thinketh” by James Allen which almost seems like a condensed inspirational version of “Think and Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill which is actually given through AsAManThinketh.net.

It is an excellent book and considering how short it is I’d mark it as a must read. It’s not much longer than some longer articles found commonly on the web. The only criticisms I have for the book is that the author sometimes seems to imply or is at least unclear about the existence of absolute “right” and “wrong”, or “good” or “bad” and thus judges certain thoughts as good or bad, pure or impure etc.

I believe that such valuations are really in the eyes of the beholder because reality outside of thinking and feeling beings does not think and feel and therefore cannot perceive nor contain inherent “good” or “bad”. It is only an individual human which asigns such values to things. That said, however, all sentences in the book which encourage “good” thoughts against “bad” thoughts can be read as suggesting you to nourish what you believe to be good thoughts.

Another critique I would add is against his use of words such as “selfish” in a negative way even while describing a philosophy which is essentially about pursuing ones own dreams and desires (which is essentially selfish). But this may merely be my misunderstanding of the context from which he was writing or a flaw of english language where even words like “selfish” can have dual and contradictory meanings. For instance “selfish” could at the same time describe “individual pursuit of happiness and self-responsibility” and “pursuit of power over others out of lack of self-responsibility”.

That said, the book is a jewel. It artfully expresses the idea that an individual’s character is a sum of his thoughts, that thoughts lead to acts which shape our circumstances and therefore our entire destiny. It certainly fits well with the belief I’ve already been developing. Every act is met by a reaction from the reality around us. We then judge this reaction, this consequence, as either good or bad for us and based on that, if we are thinking and keeping ourselves aware, we can adjust our acts to get better consequences. And to do that we have to adjust our thoughts and by that our character.

So indeed, what we think is what we are. Our thoughts and ideas are the sum of who we are. And this largely affects our circumstances in life. This is why there is nobody but yourself to blame if your circumstances are bad to you and why there is much less of such things people call “bad luck” or “good luck” than is commonly thought.

Here is a quote that particularly stuck with me:

“It has been usual for men to think and to say, “Many men are slaves because one is an oppressor; let us hate the oppressor!” But there is amongst an increasing few a tendency to reverse this judgment and to say, “One man is an oppressor because many are slaves; let us despise the slaves.”
The truth is that oppressor and slaves are cooperators in ignorance, and, while
seeming to afflict each other, are in reality, afflicting themselves. “

This actually reminded me of a thought I had after watching “V for Vendetta” movie, that rulers in seeking power over others lose power over themselves whereas those being ruled let themselves to be ruled only because they could not rule themselves. Essentially, both the rulers and the ruled are playing the same exact game and inflicting on themselves the same exact poison, and all end up losers. And they are both consumed by fear.

So what can the few of people who know and understand this do in face of the masses who administer this poison to themselves? Should we despair as we see them wallowing in the pain and chaos (endless war, between governments and between rulers and ruled) they created for themselves fearing that we will be caught in their cross fires?
It wont do us any good, obviously. The best thing we can do is live free and be an example while conveying our ideas to those who are actually willing to listen. We can’t hope to send a more powerful message and more greatly influence the world any other way.

And in line with that, here is another quote:

“Dream lofty dreams, and as you dream, so shall you become. Your vision is the promise of what you shall one day be; your ideal is the prophecy of what you shall at last unveil.
The greatest achievement was at first and for a time a dream. The oak sleeps in the acorn; the bird waits in the egg. And in the highest vision of a soul a waking angle stirs. Dreams are the seedlings of realities.
Your circumstances may be uncongenial, but they shall not remain so if you only perceive an ideal and strive to reach it. You can’t travel within and stand still without.”

Tags: , , ,
Posted in Uncategorized | 9 Comments »

Culture of Rebellion

Monday, July 28th, 2008

I have a feeling that the young generations of today and rebellion go hand in hand. Some would say that it is in the nature of teen age to rebel, but judging from what I hear from my own parents, a story which may be confirmed by many other parents, is that even if they did want to rebel, the voice of obedience was often much stronger. Their own parents must’ve been much more intimidating. :P

Today, in the age in which rebellions thumping sounds are what we call mainstream music, from hip hop to trance and techno, it looks like the young generation is winning. Only a couple of decades ago this kind of music was frowned upon as mind washing, overly seductive and drug use inducing and people have and probably still are literally forbidding their kinds to listen to it, let alone go to one of those huge parties

Yet the number of these parties and the number of attendants seems to be growing! The once considered “hard” electronic music is becoming mainstream. This music very often invokes feelings of self power and thereby rebellion to anyone who says you can’t do what you really want.

There is only one problem. People who love this kind of music, and despite criticism from their elderly go to these parties, often go only to get themselves “wasted” or to “have a good time” or even to find a (sex) partner…

It could be more, however, if the mentality of rebellion is brought a step further. I could say that the rebels have the music, but still lack the determination and a target. The electronic music culture seems a little like the anti-globalist movement, but with a twist. They both love to make lots of noise wherever they go. They both come in great numbers and they both have a sense of rebellion in them. It’s just that anti-globalists, when they come to one of their “parties”, that is, protests, shout and scream and wave signs and flags and even sometimes do material damage in their agitation towards the perceived enemy, the target, the powers that be, like the G8 group or the Bilderbergs.

Their problem? What the hell is their solution? They have the target alright, but they seldom offer anything they fight FOR. Like, who would they replace the G8, the Bilderbergs and the worlds corrupt governments with??

The electronic music culture of rebellion is similar. They’ve got that kick (pun not intended), but it’s not channeled towards anything but “wasting” themselves. Many on those sensational trance parties talk about “energy”, “love” and “connectedness”, but where do they channel these things? Maybe this energy could be channeled towards a particular shared goal? Maybe the electronic music culture of rebellion needs to define a target and a goal of its own. We feel rebellious, but who are we rebelling against and what are we FOR?

Bottom line is, I’m essentially advocating a merger between what is essentially entertainment and activism. Both have enormous power within them. Entertainment, like electronic music in this instance, can get people incredibly energized, fired up and excited. Activism needs exactly these elements to fuel its campaign for a particular cause. Merging the two is an explosion waiting to be detonated.

I will, in fact, probably be working on this sort of thing. My last post was incredibly vague and impulsive, but it does have something to do with what I am talking about here. ;)

The culture of rebellion will be powered up. Ingredients are there. We just need to mix them up.

Tags: , , ,
Posted in Uncategorized | 2 Comments »

What brings me to tears, and makes me want to march

Saturday, July 12th, 2008

Something is going to happen today, a mass of people who finally woke up from their apathy are going to march for their freedom in Washington DC, USA. As a country which used to be considered a beacon of freedom, it is today one of the examples of a police state, and the way people usually react to these gradual yet disastrous encroachments of their liberties is apathy, because they feel lost or disempowered. “What can I do anyway, right?”

Well, Ron Paul is no savior, but he has done something incredible nevertheless. He has been the only US president candidate which actually shows genuine care for the issue of freedom and presents a message that is truly different from what has become a norm in US lately. This helped show people that there may yet be a chance, if only a last chance, for them to actually slow down or stop the encroachments to their freedom.

A sign one guy in a video I am about to link says it best: “Ron Paul cured my apathy”.

Indeed, apathy, which leads to ignorance, settles in when there is a feeling of hopelessness and helplessness, but if you are in USA today you can feel vibrant and alive and you can march with hope and energize your activist spirit. The masses of young people are waking up.

But I’ll stop rambling and show you what is it that brings me to tears.

This youtube video, about a Revolution March.

Please digg this video.

It starts with some powerful and motivating scenes of people being abused by their government and flashes back to WW2 germany. The comparison is more fitting than you may think if you just do some research.

It brings me to tears because I care about freedom. I don’t know how else to put it. It is baffling how have we let our governments invade our lives so much, yet we have seen it time and again on TV, on the internet, new freedom depriving laws, news of people being abused and arrested for the most benign of reasons, for crimes which contain no v of violence in it. This shit piles up until we become numb. Even I become numb, cynical and angry.

That video may be propaganda, but it has a way of being an emotional outlet, inducing the kind of reaction that convinces me, yes I do care. I care to the tears. I care so much I would want to go there and march with the rest, if I only could.

But I will be watching for the news from the freedom front tomorrow in Washington. And I will be hoping that they send a shockwave of voices saying: “We are not giving up, we are paying attention and we are going to take our freedoms back”. And then, there is more hope we can go even further, not just 90% of freedom with minimal government, but 100% of it in a true voluntaryist society.

But it all starts now, or every moment that you choose. Maybe you’ll want to choose July 12, the Revolution March.

And again, please Please spread this video to help motivate more people.

Tags: , ,
Posted in Uncategorized | No Comments »

Be Big.

Tuesday, May 13th, 2008

Stefan Molyneux has so nicely expressed what is at heart of the upcoming site, DoublePlusHuman.com. Be big, be human. Here is a video with his encouraging speech.

Here is a download link, thanks to KeepVid.com.

Enjoy.

Tags: ,
Posted in Uncategorized | No Comments »